Northwest Collector

Starting your first collection? Here are a few tips . . .

A couple of months ago, I received an interesting letter, apparently mass-mailed to collectibles dealers, from a gentleman whose father is a paralyzed U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD. The father had collected various things in his youth—“cards, stamps, games, etc.”—all of which had been destroyed by flooding, and the son hoped to put a new collection together for his dad. The son concluded the letter asking for “information and/or samples.”

This piqued my interest for two reasons. One, I know the rewards of collecting—as most readers of this blog also do—and can well imagine it providing therapeutic value for someone coping with anxiety (with the caveat that competitive collecting, such as bidding at auction, can be another source of stress).

The second thing that interested me was that the son seemed not have ever collected anything himself: Why else would he have mailed a bunch of collectibles dealers to ask for information? It seemed like a noble but misguided effort to help his father by “casting too wide a net,” so to speak.

Naturally, I was eager to offer encouragement and advice. Here’s my reply:

Dear Mr. ———

Please convey my gratitude to your father for his service and tremendous sacrifices for our country.

Your letter did not sound as if you have ever collected anything yourself, so I want to urge you: First off, please do not build a collection for your father. Instead, ask him what he wants to collect and then offer him any help he needs to create his own collection.

Collecting is a very personal pursuit, and people’s interests change: I collected coins when I was a kid—often by going through my father’s pocket change—and I learned a lot about coins back then, when you could still sometimes find buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. My father was born in 1906: HIS father’s pocket change might have had coins from the Civil War era! Hard to imagine.

The point is, I don’t collect coins now—or stamps or baseball cards, which I also collected—as my interests have changed. So whatever your dad collected when he was a kid may not have the same meaning to him now.

Second, BUILDING a collection is at least half the fun of HAVING the collection. If you just buy a collection and give it to your father, it won’t be as much fun as building it himself. So let your father do the collecting!

So you really need to talk with your dad and see what really interests him!

Third, unless you have a lot of money, don’t collect what everyone else is trying to collect. When I used to collect rare books when I was in my 20s, and didn’t have much money, someone told me: Don’t plan to collect signed Ernest Hemingway first editions, because you will never have much of a collection. In fact, depending on what your dad decides to collect, you may not need to spend much money at all! I used to collect my favorite ballplayers’ autographs just by writing them letters and asking for their autographs. So it cost the price of a postage stamp, some paper and some envelopes!

Fourth, and this is a big one: Ask other people who collect the same type of thing how to go about it and who to buy from. Don’t buy ANYTHING until you research it, as there are a lot of people who will overcharge you or sell you fake stuff, especially on eBay.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Once your dad decides what he wants to collect, let me know and maybe I can help with more specific information.

So far, no response, but I wonder if readers have anything else to add . . . ?

Old news is good news for collectors

Images courtesy of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers, www.RareNewspapers.com

Newsprint of president Lincon
A rare image of a pre-bearded Abraham Lincoln, one of eleven Republican presidential hopefuls featured on a double-page centerfold in the May 12, 1860, Harper’s Weekly. $300.

Newspapers are what one of my favorite history professors termed “primary sources”: Like diaries, photographs, documents and other artifacts, they are original historical material as opposed to a second- or third-hand description of events plus any number of add-ons and asides, which is what most history books are.

A newspaper – taking into account the speed of communication at the time it was published – is about as immediate as you can get.

Add to that the fact that newspapers, like books, can touch on virtually any collecting field, and you can understand why I like to tell fellow collectors about Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers (rarenewspapers.com).

Imagine the possibilities …

Read more

The Zen of collecting

The following was originally posted online in 2013 in slightly different form.

Collecting is about restraint, not the lack of it. If you buy selectively, you’re a collector; if you buy reflexively or compulsively, you’re a hoarder. In other words:

Don’t amass “stuff.” Collect something that is meaningful to you. Don’t get locked into a habit. True collecting is much more than just acquisitiveness; it’s about knowing all you can about your subject and, even better, finding out something new that other collectors may not know.

Choose your collecting area carefully. Specialize as much as possible and stick to those parameters. It’s smarter and certainly more cost-effective to limit your spending and then broaden your field than to spend widely and then narrow your focus.

Be realistic. If you flip burgers at McDonald’s for minimum wage, don’t plan to collect signed Hemingway first editions anytime soon. Better to choose a more contemporary author or artist or musician you really love whose associated memorabilia is within your price range. Which is to say:

Stay within your budget. Part of the fun of collecting is getting great stuff at great prices. Sure, if you have deep pockets, you can buy whatever you want by just throwing money at it—but I question how rewarding that could possibly be, especially as you’re bound to overpay more often than not.

Some of my favorite pieces are the ones that cost the least. This usually means spreading the word about what I’m looking for, watching a lot of online auctions and dealer websites, exercising patience, and otherwise persevering. It also involves plenty of research. When you finally nab what you’ve been searching for, that’s when you’ll feel the most gratification.

Quality is more important than quantity. Unless something is unique, one-of-a-kind, or so rare that you never expect to see another, it’s bound to come on the market again—sooner than you think, in better condition, and/or at a better price. Before buying or bidding on something, ask yourself: Do I really need this? If your honest answer is no, pass on it.

You can’t have everything. Collecting is a journey that never ends. Unless you collect a very limited series of something—rookie cards for the 1969 Mets, for example, or Franklin Mint spoons for the state of Hawaii—you’ll never acquire every worthwhile collectible in your area of interest . . . so don’t try to buy everything. Again, be selective.

When you lose an item, let it go. You may mistype a last-minute bid and not have enough time to correct it; or sleep through an early morning auction; or mistake the date or time an auction was due to end; or encounter a computer glitch; or discover that an item was withdrawn from an auction because the consignor decided to sell it directly to another bidder . . . All these things have happened to me. Most often I’m simply outbid. It used to ruin my whole day—even my whole week.

Then I learned to take a deep breath and just get over it. If you want to get spiritual about it, just accept that everything happens for a reason. Maybe it means that you’ll get something even better before long: As Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another door opens . . .” Or consider it payback for the great stuff you were lucky enough to get in the past. The important thing is not to agonize over a loss and, if possible, to learn something from it.